Breaking our co sleeping habit

Lauren, Dan and I co sleep. This happened by accident and has been a very hard habit to break. I'm not against co sleeping but it doesn't work well for us. Dan and I don't spend a lot of time together during the day and we like to cuddle up in bed together and that's a little hard to do with a baby between us. Also Lauren likes to cuddle up next to me so I feel like I have absolutely no space and most nights am hugging the side of our bed. When Lauren was around 4 months she started waking up at 5am and I'd have a very hard time getting her back to sleep. I discovered that if I brought her back to bed with me she'd sleep another 2-3 hours and really who wouldn't rather sleep until 7am instead of 5am! Then Lauren caught a bad cold in April and was sleeping in our bed because I had to prop her up so she could breathe. Ever since we've been battling the co sleeping habit so I thought I'd do a series of posts on our efforts to break this.

Lauren's always had issues falling asleep and as frustrated as I get I do feel bad for her because I'm pretty sure I have given this to her. I'm a terrible sleeper and have never been able to just fall asleep right away so I try my best to have patience with her lack of sleeping at night. She'll sleep in her crib for naps (I should clarify. At the moment I'm still nursing her to sleep in the rocker and then placing her in the crib.) She does wake up a little when I transfer to the crib but I've found if I place her on her side she'll go back to sleep right away. So naps aren't an issue, even bedtime isn't normally an issue. It's the middle of the night that we struggle with. I've also been thinking with my return to work next month we should probably start working on getting her to fall asleep on her own. Here's Lauren's schedule night schedule:

Bed time: 7-8. We're a little flexible with this as Lauren doesn't always have an afternoon nap so some              days she's more tired then others.

Wakes between 11-12 for her first feeding.

Wakes again between 3-4 for second feeding

7:30 am wakes up for the day

She normally ends up in our bed after that 11-12 feeding. It's not from lack of trying. I'll put her in the crib like I do with her naps but she'll wake up and not go back to sleep. I'll try sitting beside the crib holding her hand and singing to her then pick her up and rock her to sleep to try again. After 3 failed attempts she ends up in our bed and happily falls asleep almost instantly.

Last night was night 1 of breaking this habit. Here's how it went:

We went over to our friends place for dinner and didn't get home until 8. Lauren wasn't ready for bed at all since she had a much needed nap from 4-5 so we got her all ready for bed then let her stay up and video chatted with Dan's parents. At 9:30 she was definitely ready for bed. I fed her to sleep but when I placed her in the crib she woke up and started crying. I told her she was ok, I loved her and then walked out. She was FURIOUS. We let her cry for 15 minutes then Dan went in and tried rocking her to sleep but she kept trying to get away and after eye gauging him twice he did the same as me and put her back in the crib and walked out. 10 pm I went in and she was standing in her crib so I laid her back down, told her she was ok and I loved her then walked out. 10:15 Dan went in and he told me she was standing so he picked her up and she instantly fell asleep in his arms. He placed her in the crib asleep and walked out.

She woke up at 2:15ish which was really unusual for her. I went in, picked her up and fed her. When she was asleep I placed her back in the crib and walked out. She woke up 10 minutes later (which is what she does if for some reason she doesn't wake up when we put her in her crib) so instead of going back in I let her try to fall back asleep on her own. I was very surprised because she never really cried. She just babbled to herself and within 10 minutes there was silence. I tossed and turned all night because I was so worried if she was ok but I wouldn't allow myself to go in to check on her (if I would've she'd have woken up.)

We woke up to the alarm going off at 7:30 and silence from Lauren's room. Dan heard her thumping her feet at 8 am and went to go get her. Apparently she looked at him, rolled over and fell back asleep. She woke up again at 8:30 happy.

Night 1 = SUCCESS

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting a whole lot more crying. Hopefully night 2 will go just as well or even easier.